The Prothean Effect: A Mass Effect Retelling
by Saori Runa Dempsey
Summary: "…I wish we could do things over. Do it right. That you'd never lost so much. I wish for a world that I don't lose you." In a haze of grief, Garrus Vakarian made a wish. How the hell was he supposed to know Prothean Relics actually made them come true?


_**Hello and welcome to my first Mass Effect fanfiction! This is a story I've had simmering in my head for probably two years now…and since I first got introduced to the beauty that is Mass Effect. Obviously, this is glaringly AU, and while I fully intend to stay true to the spirit of the game, many things will deviate from what happened because this story will focus on THREE Shepards, each covering one of the psych profiles (War Hero, Sole Survivor, Ruthless) and of the Spacer background, and each effecting the way familiar events play out.**_

_**IMPORTANT Notes:**_

_***This story WILL contain hints of several pairings that include:**_

_**FemShep/Kaidan, FemShep/Garrus, BroShep/Tali, BroShep/Ashley, FemShep/Joker. If any of these bother/offend/disgust you, turn away now. You have been **__**warned.**_

_***Lastly, many cultural and language references will sound incredibly familiar for some people; this is not a mistake and I received permission from MYETEL, their creator, to use them. (Many, many moons ago. Like...2 years? But it's still permission, right?) If you have not checked out her stories, I highly recommend them. The world she has spun for us, in many ways, has become canon in my head. (And can I just say Dempsey is still my favorite 'Young Gun' and totally kicks ASS? Fors, Samiel, and Zhasa are close second.)**_

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, Mass Effect 3 would've ended far differently.**_

_**That being said, please enjoy.**_

* * *

_**The Prothean Effect**_

_A Mass Effect Retelling_

_**Prologue**_

_Citadel, 2186_

The silence was deafening.

Alone in the huge apartment given to Shepard just scant months ago, he stared at the picture that immortalized the crew during that…memorable…party. They were all so _happy_. Despite the losses on their end, the Reapers were _gone_. Finished. Unfortunately, only Shepard herself knew how that had happened and she…she…

Garrus closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. He'd come here in an effort to be closer to her, somehow – it'd seemed like a good idea at the time. The likes of Dr. Chakwas, Miranda, and Dr. Michel were all working on her, around the clock, and there was absolutely nothing he could do except step back and get out of their way.

Rayna Shepard didn't have much in her house by way of personal stuff. In a desperate effort to somehow stay close to his beloved, he blindly looked for something of hers to hold onto. His perusal of the apartment did unearth a small box of memorabilia tucked into the corner of the master bedroom's closet. A medal of some kind from the Alliance – several, really, all kept hidden but in excellent condition – greeted him when he opened it.

Too many, really, to be only hers…

Gratefully, he let his inner cop takeover – the part of himself that reveled in the chase for truth and information. A datapad underneath them caught his attention and he flicked it on, blinking once at the video that popped up. A much younger Rayna Shepard stared up at him, decked out in her military dress blues but with a somehow lighter expression. Transfixed, he just stared at her image for awhile, talons tracing along the digital image longingly. Spirits, but he missed her. To have it all end in this way…after all she'd done…he felt cheated. They'd wasted so much _futtari _time too.

_It doesn't look good, Garrus._ Dr. Chakwas' voice echoed in his mind, heartbroken and sympathetic all at once. Dr. Michel's equally worried tones saying, _I have no medical reason for why she's still breathing._ Miranda, pinch-lipped and silent.

Shaking his head, he let the video play.

"_Together now!" The voice of the one recording the vid was patiently exasperated in the way parents were when their children didn't do things in a timely manner. "Come on, Rayna. It's your sister's __**graduation.**__"_

_She rolled her eyes before being tugged closer by another female – younger than her, notably, and in the uniform of a young lieutenant fresh out of the human academy, perhaps. Where Rayna's hair had a darkish red tinge to it, this female had a light, pale brown. It was, however, a face that bore striking similarities to his beloved's. "Only for you, Cassidy."_

"_Your hardship is duly noted." From Cassidy Shepard's smile, it was a familiar jab. She had a lightness that her elder sister lacked – where Rayna came off as serious, Cassidy reminded Garrus in many ways of Kasumi without the emotional baggage. When she turned to look at something offscreen to the left, Cassidy shouted, "You too, Finnick! I want my big brother in this too!"_

_The tall male who came on screen made Rayna seem positively lighthearted, but the clear affection for both females was obvious as he tolerantly let Cassidy poke at him and Rayna gave him the stink eye, saying, "If I have to, so do you."_

She grinned then on the vid, quick and devilish, and his heart ached at the familiar expression. If he were human, he could've cried, but all he could manage was a low keening sound that merely echoed in the all too empty apartment.

_She has family._ He'd known of her mother, Captain Hannah Shepard, but Rayna had never said anything about siblings. She'd never spoken a word about them even when he'd told her all about Solanna and their close but often combative relationship.

A quick look through the other videos on the datapad told him why though. He found the report from Elysium after the Blitz, speaking of the heroism of one Finnick Shepard who saved hundreds of civilians, protecting them on the ground despite being on shore leave with nothing but a pistol at his disposal…before being killed by the Batarians shortly before reinforcements arrived. Another report, dated about a year later, spoke of the tragedy on Akuze. A single young officer survived out of fifty; among the dead was Lieutenant Cassidy Shepard, a young and promising recon scout fresh out of the Alliance Academy and on her first field assignment. The last was a report of the attack on Torfan, ending with an image of the Rayna Shepard he knew and loved; the one with the shadows in her eyes that spoke of tragedies unending.

Garrus put the datapad back gently, unable to look further. It felt like invading her privacy, somehow. He wanted to hear from her own lips about these people – the brother and sister she'd lost.

At the very bottom of the box was something very familiar. The Prothean Relic from Kopis sat there, as mysterious as the day they'd retrieved it. He remembered Rayna sitting with the thing in her cabin for hours, trying somehow to commune with the blasted thing. She'd told him once that she'd thought she'd heard faint whispers of power once when she'd really channeled her biotics into it, but it hadn't been anything she'd been able to make sense out of.

Garrus held the thing in his hands, staring into the silvery liquid that seemed to make it up and tried to picture her face – that expression of concentration she would wear before it morphed into vexation as she messed with it. When he closed his eyes he thought he could even feel a tingling beneath his fingers.

"_You miss me that much?"_ Her voice, an audible grin in it, whispered in his ears faintly. _"What do you wish, Garrus?"_

"I wish…" He swallowed, voice failing him briefly. He could _smell_ the scent of her in the air – Rayna never wore perfume or anything, but she'd always smelled clean with the slightest bit of gun oil to her scent, of all things. "…I wish we could do things over. Do it right. That you'd never lost so much." _I wish for a world that I don't lose you._

He couldn't know, standing there with his eyes closed as he was, that the relic began to _glow_. The metallic liquid shrunk slightly before expanding outwards quickly in a spray of silver.

Garrus didn't hear, as consciousness left him, a voice so clearly not his beloved's whisper into the blankness of space,_ "As you wish."_


End file.
